, 1887-12-10
PROCESS OF CANE PLANTING.
Methods Pursued on n Louisiana Planta-
homework in the stubbIe Fields.

NV in the stubbIe Fields.
Let us follow in their sequence the
processes of planting. First is the I'M
covering with plows of the burrows in
which the seed cane has been buried
since last fall, the pulling it out of the
ground with great iron hooks attached to
poles, and the loading it into carts. In
the 'hooking up gang 1 observed two
white men working with the negroes.
They are Spaniards from the Terre aux
Boeufs country, the other side of the
swamps. There are two others who are
neither whites nor negroes. They have
a brown complexion, high cheek bones,
regular features and straight black hair.
These are Manila men"-natives of the
Philippine Islands. The curiously mixed
population of lower Louisiana includes
1000 or 5000 of them.
Big, stout carts, with broad tired
wheels, haul the resurrected canes to the
field prepared for planting. Here a gang
of women called '~'droppers' take up the
ane by armfuls and drop them in heaps
ut intervals beside the burrows. They are
placed i'll the burrows by other women
called planters" Another gang passes
along the burrows and chops up the canes
with rude Ratchet like knives. The OBJ
49, - S"D - W BINC llnt "tdh eyes Il
chance to draw strength from the stock
which would otherwise be absorbed by
those which have already a good start.
About six tons of cane go to the planting
Of an acre. One acre of seed cane will
plant three acres, and as the planting
must be done every third year., one-ninth
OF the crop average of a plantation must
but be given up to seed cane. When the
seed cane is cut in the fall the stalks are
laid between Ii rows of stubble and
covered with Il pillow run on each side.
After the canes are laid and cut, they
are covered with plows or with a ma
chine called a rotary hoe, and the ground
Is then rolled to press the dirt close to the
sprouting eyes, The first crop is called
plant cane. Next year the cant sprouts
from the stubble, and is called first
ratoons. The second year it sprouts
again, and is called second ratoons. The
third year the stubble is plowed UP and
the ground sowed with field peas, which
~recuperates the land, as clover does
northern farms. The fourth year it is
again put in plant cane. A good yield
to the acre is % tons of plant cane, 90
of the first r~atoons, and 10 of second
ratoons. On the upper coast, above
New Orleans, it is customary to let the
stubble ratoon but once. In Cuba it often
ratoons six successive years, but the cane
becomes constantly more woody and
poorer in saccharine matter.
In h stubble fields the first spring,
work consists in barring off, " OF NOV
ing the dirt way from the roots Of the
cane with plows and hoes, to permit the
light and air to hasten the terminating of
the ratoons. By the middle of April
there should be a good ''stand' of the
young sprouts. Then the dirt is worked
back toward the rows, and there is coli
stantc cultivation with the pillow till after
the 1st of July, when the crop is '.laid
by No more work is done on it till the
cutting begins in September. Now the
cane is so high that a man driving a mule
is lost to sight between the rows. Soon
it will be tall enough to swallow up a
ma on horseback. The rows are usual
ly seven feet apart and always run paral-
lel with the ditches-that is, from the
river or bayou toward the swamp. July
and August was formerly the time for
cutting wood in the swamps Il run the
sugar mill during the grinding season,
but now most plantations BURN coal. The
crop being made" the planter feels
that he can relax his vigilance, and if he
has the means, he goes off to the north
with his family TO escape the two hottest
months of the year in Louisiana and
build up his health in q less enervating
climate.--E. V. Smalley in The Century.